Los Alamos

Tularosa residents want government to acknowledge what happened in 1945

(Newser) -
An unknown blast shook the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945, unsettling the historic Hispanic village of Tularosa. Residents there didn't learn that scientists from the then-secret city of Los Alamos had successfully detonated the first atomic bomb at the nearby Trinity Site until after the US announced...
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(Newser) -
Harold Agnew, a physicist who helped build the first atomic bomb and served as a director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, died yesterday at his home in Solana Beach, Calif. He was 92. Agnew, who was suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia, died while watching football on TV, the AP...
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Researchers have been using it for more than 2 years

(Newser) -
The concept of a "quantum Internet" is like the holy grail of online security—any such system would guarantee that all communication is safe. Now it appears that researchers at Los Alamos have made real progress: They've been using an uber-secure system of their own design for about...
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Computer components were made by Huawei-affiliated company

(Newser) -
In a national security move, a top US nuclear facility has replaced at least two computer parts after learning that they were Chinese-made. The systems at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which maintains our nuclear weapon stockpile, used some network switches created by China-based H3C; the switches control data flow. H3C...
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But thousands of experiments remain idle during shutdown

(Newser) -
Los Alamos nuclear laboratory officials say it could be a few days before they'll know the extent of how experiments at the facility that created the first atomic bomb have been affected by a shutdown caused by a 125-square-mile wildfire . The lab has been shut down since Monday, when...
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30,000 drums of spent material stored on grounds

(Newser) -
Desperate firefighters scrambled today to keep a raging New Mexico wildfire from thousands of drums of spent plutonium on the grounds of the Los Alamos nuclear weapons facility. The potential danger has already forced the evacuation of the entire town of Los Alamos and the surrounding area. Officials insisted that...
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She makes plea with wildfire near Los Alamos lab

(Newser) -
With a wildfire burning up her state and threatening the Los Alamos nuclear lab, Gov. Susana Martinez thinks this would be a terrific year to skip the Fourth of July fireworks. She doesn't have the authority to order a statewide ban, so she's merely making an appeal to...
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Blaze on outskirts of lab complex extinguished

(Newser) -
A wildfire raging in New Mexico jumped a highway and set fire to an acre at the edge of the Los Alamos National Laboratory property, triggering the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents. The fire, which hit an area once used for underground tests of radioactive explosives, was extinguished safely...
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'It's a very, very big concern'

(Newser) -
It's not a good day to live near a nuclear facility : In New Mexico, a wildfire is edging dangerously close to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the world's first nuclear weapons were developed during WWII. "It's a very, very big concern, not only locally but...
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Mascheroni charged with trying to get Venezuela nukes

(Newser) -
The Los Alamos physicist and his wife accused of trying to peddle nuclear secrets to Venezuela were released to house arrest today, the AP reports. While under the impression that he was in touch with agents of Hugo Chavez's government, Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni is charged with offering to help Venezuela...
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Nuclear option isn't an option: scientists

(Newser) -
The federal government is definitely not considering nuking its way out of the Gulf oil spill crisis, despite some people's belief that it may be the best remaining option, officials said. The Soviet Union has successfully used nuclear blasts to seal off several runaway gas wells, supporters of the nuclear...
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$3M damage after cannon test goes awry

(Newser) -
Nuclear researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory accidentally blew up part of a building this week while testing a gun that acts like a Civil War cannon, according to documents obtained by the Project on Government Oversight. Nobody was injured in the incident, but sources say the bill for the...
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Scientists with big questions to benefit more from DOE's two behemoths

(Newser) -
It's easier than ever before to get some quality time with one of the most powerful computers on Earth. The Department of Energy has increased the performance of two of its supercomputers more than fivefold, making 900 million processor-hours available to scientists, reports Wired. Expect that boost to lead to...
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(Newser) -
The nuclear weapons lab at Los Alamos is trying to find 69 missing computers, including three stolen from a scientist's home and a Blackberry lost in "a sensitive foreign country" in the last two months, reports AP. No classified information was on the computers but they contained names and...
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Authors track nations' paths to nuclear club

(Newser) -
When it comes to the spread of nuclear weapons, all paths lead back to the US, the New York Times reports in a look at two books. In The Nuclear Express, the authors chart the rise of the world's nine nuclear nations and conclude that "since the birth of...
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Los Alamos, IBM team pass petaflop level

(Newser) -
IBM and Los Alamos Laboratory scientists used an amalgam of computer chips, including some designed for use in the PlayStation 3, to blow through one of the computing world’s most pursued milestones—processing more than one thousand trillion calculations per second, reports the New York Times. The petaflop benchmark...
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